Odyssey, Vol. 2
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Perhaps the best-known and most influential of the Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey stand in a class by themselves. The poems are the oldest existing works of Western literature. Their style and content played such an important role in shaping subsequent Greek culture that Homer was often called the teacher of Greece. The style of Greek used in the works has become its own form or dialect, known as Homeric Greek. Like the works of Cicero, the Iliad and the Odyssey are studied for their eloquent use of language. Innumerable works of literature, theater, and poetry have been written based on or responding to the Iliad and the Odyssey. The influence carries right up to our own day. One of the most important literary work of the twentieth century, James Joyce’s Ulysses, is a direct and intentional parallel of the Odyssey (Ulysses is the Latin version of Odysseus, the main character in the Odyssey). This volume contains A. T. Murray’s English translation of the second volume of Homer’s Odyssey.
Top Highlights
“So he spoke, and the old dame took the shining cauldron with water wherefrom she was about to wash his feet, and poured in cold water in plenty, and then added thereto the warm.” (Page 257)
“Then Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, answered her, and said: ‘My child, why dost thou ask and question me of this? Didst thou not thyself devise this plan, that verily Odysseus should take vengeance on these men at his coming? Do as thou wilt, but I will tell thee what is fitting. Now that goodly Odysseus has taken vengeance on the wooers, let them swear a solemn oath, and let him be king all his days, and let us on our part bring about a forgetting of the slaying of their sons and brothers; and let them love one another as before, and let wealth and peace abound.’” (Pages 437–439)
“‘Eumaeus, mayest thou be as dear to father Zeus as thou art to me, since thou honourest me with a good portion, albeit I am in such plight.’” (Page 65)
“And he held it in his right hand, and tried the string, which sang sweetly beneath his touch, like to a swallow in tone.” (Page 333)